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Christianity: A Global History. By David Chidester. San Francisco: HarperSanFrandsco, 2000. x + 627 pp. $32.00 (cloth); $21.00 (paper).
As the title advertises, this book is an ambitious undertaking. David Chidester, a professor of comparative religion at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, has attempted to tell "the story of Christianity as a sweeping epic" over the past two millennia of its history and to ponder its global nature in view of a new millennium. His chronicle especially aims to understand Christianity as a religion born and formed out of other religions, existing in an environment of religious diversity and thus whose history is also that of other religions.
In setting about this account, Chidester has arranged his narrative in three parts. The first is entitled "Ancient Origins," in which he traces the primitive and patristic eras of the Christian church. The medieval and reformation periods are surveyed under the heading "Historical Transitions." The advent of European colonization of the New...